In each of our podcasts, we ask top hardware entrepreneurs the same 10 questions to better understand the challenges and best practices in starting a hardware company. In Season 2 Episode 4, Lemnos’s Eric Klein speaks with Amir Hirsch, co-founder and CEO of Flybrix, a Lemnos portfolio company.

We started thinking about building flying cameras. This was 2014. There was a lot of hype around drones at the time. So I entered into the drone space, intrigued by the opportunity first to make flying cameras, but secondly to explore pocketable designs and industrial designs that allow a drone to fold up. In that process, we were using Lego bricks for prototyping. We 3D printed these little connectors to hold the motor onto a Lego brick, and we were using the Legos as part of our way of exploring different industrial design options. We realized that we were sitting on top of a pretty cool product idea, and we decided that we would take that to market.

Before this startup, I worked for my co-founder Robb Walters, who started a company called Integrated Plasmonics. We were developing a small spectroscopy device towards the blood testing market, which we learned was probably not the best market to target. There was a lot of regulation to get to that market. But we learned a lot in the process about prototyping hardware: how much things cost and how far out your expectations are from reality. Before that, I had also worked on a nuclear power plant controller. I had built some high-end computing systems. My background is in electrical engineering. So I knew how, especially with the nuclear reactor, important it is to have really validated designs before you start to make it for a product.

It’s important to ask your colleagues and friends. Talking with a lot of people early on, especially Eric and Jeremy at Lemnos, really helped me figure out what the right thing to do at the right time was. It also helps to talk to investors about what they are seeing. So it wasn’t just my friends who were saying that that sounds like a sensible idea, because investors know what’s coming on the edge of technology. Then you can figure out what thing you might be able to get traction on within the broader community of investors.

Jeremy is one of my best friends; I’ve known him since MIT. I am the original Lemnos fanboy right here. I wanted to go through the program. I wanted to be part of this community and be able to see a lot of innovative technology happen up close. I think Lemnos’s strong suit is being able to pick founders who will make real technology. I’m really impressed with the technical skill in this building, and I would say that for anyone who is a serious electrical engineer or mechanical engineer interested in hardware, that Lemnos is the best place to go. I fantasize about working for half of the other companies at Lemnos.

The most important thing we’ve figured out is how to do prototyping. There are a number of different services where we can get boards made at different time lines. There are fast turn things in this city that will give us a board in three day